When faced with a condition giving rise to bodily discomfort, such as a diseased state, disorder, ailment, normal bodily disruptions, and the like, most people turn to medication, such as drugs, supplements, herbs, and the like for immediate relief from the symptoms that arise from the underlying condition. There are certain legal and widely available over-the-counter (OTC) medications and supplements that have beneficial effects when used for a variety of common conditions. There are also certain controlled narcotics and pharmaceuticals prescribed by doctors for a variety of more serious conditions.
One of the most common routes of administration of these OTC and prescription drugs is oral administration. However, as with any oral delivery of medication, it must pass through the digestive tract. There are a number of disadvantages of oral administration. For example, because the drug has to pass through the digestive system, the onset of activation of the drug is slow. In addition, in the digestive tract the drug may be inactivated or destroyed, and therefore, lose its potency or efficacy. The drug itself can also cause problems in the digestive tract, or side effects, such as loss of appetite, diarrhea, acidity, and the like. Furthermore, patients may be reluctant or unable to swallow a pill.
Other routes of delivery exist, such as intradermal injections, patch applications, inhalations, and the like. Each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, there is still room for improving routes of administration of drugs.
For example, there are varieties of medicants which are safer, more effective, and more efficient with respect to efficacy if their ingestion is via inhalation of a vapor containing the medicant or its active ingredient rather than by gastrointestinal, intravenous or intramuscular delivery. However, most vaporization methodologies for inhalation are done at relatively high temperatures and, as a result, present risks or hurdles to either the efficacy of the medicant or the well-being of the user.
Certain medicants are intended to affect the brain or the brain's actions or activities but, given the accepted method of ingestion—gastrointestinal, intravenous, or intramuscular—these medicants can also have a variety of discomforting side effects due to the nature of ingestion or injection. These include, but are not limited to: gastro-intestinal complications, digestive disorders, high blood pressure, and/or headaches.
Additionally, certain methods to vaporize and deliver these medicants have drawbacks as well, specifically those that vaporize the medicant itself, changing the molecular or chemical structure of the medicant or those that vaporize an excipient at a high temperature, once again changing the molecular or chemical structure of the excipient and raising the risk of changing the chemical structure of the medicant when it interacts with the vaporized excipient.
In order to ensure that the medicant is delivered intact via inhalation it is critical that the method of vaporization does not change the chemical or fundamental molecular structure of the medicant or excipient. Therefore, there is still a need for improving the routes of administration of drugs. In particular, there is still a need for improving inhalers that can meter exact dosages without destroying the active ingredient.